Australia’s first public trading market for carbon credits has begun and its owner has predicted a shake-up of the nation’s $4.5bn carbon market as demand surges from big polluters offsetting their emissions.
Xpansiv – backed by Blackstone and Macquarie – launched its Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) trading and settlement market on Wednesday to a muted start, trading 27,449 carbon credits worth about $1.4m across eight trades.
Xpansiv transaction services president Ben Stuart said the first day’s trading had gone largely without a hitch, and the company expected trading volumes to grow after the federal government’s changes to the safeguard mechanism take effect next financial year.
Xpansiv was formed in 2019 through the merger of Sydney-based CBL, a commodity spot exchange, and San Francisco-based Xpansiv, a data-led ESG commodities platform.
It has been one of the hottest properties around, with investment giant Blackstone putting about $600m into the company in mid-2022. The company also counts CBA, Macquarie, oil giant BP’s venture arm, Caledonia Investments’ Will Vicars and INP Capital among its backers.